Born with the surname Chen (陳) in Huarong District, Jing Prefecture (荊州華容), Zhiyi left home to become a monk at eighteen, after the loss of his parents and his hometown Jiangling that fell to the Western Wei army when Zhiyi was seventeen.
Zhuye Zhiyi was able to make it through to Tang's Ling Prefecture (靈州, in modern Yinchuan, Ningxia), where the Tang military governor (Jiedushi) of Shuofang Circuit (朔方, headquartered at Ling Prefecture), Fan Xichao (范希朝), welcomed the Shatuo under Zhuye Zhiyi.
The school is largely based on the teachings of Zhiyi, Zhanran, and Zhili, who lived between the 6th and 11th centuries in China.